THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS:
NEGADON: THE MONSTER FROM MARS
2006; DVD $19.95, UR
The ultimate in Big Dumb Fun. This amazing and masterfully crafted love letter to Godzilla movies is the world’s first fully computer-generated Kaiju flick — and we can’t wait for more! Spaceships crash-land in downtown Tokyo, monstrous man-eating monsters run rampant and heroic scientists dust off their giant robots in this wonderfully stupid, wildly entertaining and way-too-short subtitled sci-fi silly-fest from Japan.
PIRATES
2006; DVD $24.95, R
Originally released as “Pirates XXX,” the world’s most expensive porno movie — edited down to a soft-porn “R” — is still a wacky take on the swashbuckler genre. Studly pirates in period shirtings spout long-winded soliloquies betwixt scenes of siliconed starlets (some sporting single names) spawning spasmodically amid sporadically spewing sputum. Buck up, me hearties! Yo ho! With such luminaries as Jesse Jane, Devon, Teagan, Tommy Gunn, Jenaveve Jolie, Frank Bukkwyd, Brian Surewood and Harry Bali, how can this be anything but good?
A DIFFERENT WORLD: SEASON 2
1987; DVD $24.95, UR
The first season of this “Cosby Show” spin-off seemed to be going nowhere, so the producers tapped Debbie “Fame” Allen to breathe some life into the format. She tossed out half the cast and focused on the exploits of rich Southern black girl Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy), and the show took off, lasting another five seasons. This was our favorite.
AFRO-PUNK
2006; DVD $19.95, UR
A completely unique doc on the issue of race identity within the African-American punk music scene. A gutsy, hard-hitting journey into the loneliness and exile that comes from midwifing a new art form.
AFTER SUNDOWN
2005; DVD $26.95, R
A fabulous, over-the-top, no-budget indie horror flick that pits an Old West vampire and his undead zombie slaves against a small Texas town, led by spunky young Susana Gibb, determined to put an end to his quest for vampire offspring. We smell a franchise!
BASIC INSTINCT 2: RISK ADDICTION
2006; DVD $26.95, R/UR
Sharon Stone returns as cinema’s favorite sexual maybe-psychopath WAAAAY too many years after exposing her pubes in the first “Basic Instinct.” Still a beautiful woman at the ripe age of 98, Sharon beguiles the pasty Scotland Yard dicks assigned to poke around her place looking for clues. Mean-spirited and nasty; worth watching, but only if you watch the original immediately afterwards.
BEYOND THE ROCKS
1922; DVD $29.95, UR
A lot of people ask us why we so love silent films. This movie is why. Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino tell Elinor Glyn’s tale of a young woman who marries an older millionaire, only to fall in love with a handsome nobleman on her honeymoon. A stunning restoration of the most perfect silent ever made.
GRILLED
2006; DVD $19.95, R
“You can’t beat their meat!” TV comic-vets Ray Romano and Kevin James recently got together for this buddy-pic about meat salesmen in the San Fernando Valley. Funny how you never heard of it, huh?
KARAS: THE PROPHECY
2006; DVD $19.95, UR
This mythic anime has all the ingredients of less-interesting fare — Tokyo, spirits, apparitions, demons — but really drew us in with its tale of a guardian raven who, with his transcendent masters, keeps the fragile peace between humans and ghostly beings from another dimension.
PERRY MASON: THE FIRST SEASON, VOL. 1
1957; DVD $59.95, UR
Modern court, detective and forensics TV shows are little more than pale shadows of this, Erle Stanley Gardner’s tales of master lawyer and criminologist (before the word existed) Perry Mason. Stars Raymond Burr, of course; 19 episodes on five discs.
PROTOCOLS OF ZION
2004; DVD $29.95, UR
For the uninitiated, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was a book written roughly a century ago that purported to expose a Jewish agenda to subjugate the world. Proved a hoax almost immediately, it nonetheless has grown to become an object of faith by anti-Semites around the world — including modern-day Arabs and Muslims! This doc is a look at why the Jews are always blamed whenever anything goes wrong.
ROAD HOUSE 2: LAST CALL
2006; DVD $24.95, R
As hard as it is to believe, some moron actually thought it would be a good idea to make a sequel to 1989’s “Road House,” arguably the stupidest movie ever made. Jonathon Schaech takes over the reins from Patrick Swayze, but for true enjoyment ask for the original. It’s just so wonderfully BAD!
THE BEST OF THE DAVID STEINBERG SHOW
1972; DVD $14.95, UR
Are we the only fans of this short-lived comedy/variety/sketch show from the psychedelic era? Steinberg was, of course, the writer/comic who got the Smothers Brothers kicked off the air with his mock religious service which began, “God ... whom you may remember from last week’s sermon ...” A master of sly social and political barbs, he set the stage for such modern pundits as “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” Trust us, you’ll love this!
THE ELLEN SHOW: THE COMPLETE SERIES
2001; DVD $39.95, UR
Not to be confused with “Ellen,” the ABC Ellen DeGeneres sitcom that lasted five seasons, this is the more infamous one that was canceled mid-season due to “issues” (read: “pressure from homophobic hate-mongers”). All 18 episodes, including five that were never aired in America.
TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY
2006; DVD $27.95, R
A scattershot realization of Laurence Sterne’s “unfilmable” comic novel “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.” Absurd, oversophisticated and too sly, it succeeds in spite of its overeager producer, Michael Winterbottom, who wrestled control from the author and went his own direction. One of those play-within-a-play-within-a-movie-within-a-theater sort of things that artists have been doing since Shakespeare was a scribe.
ZOMBIEGEDDON
2003; DVD $14.95, UR
Troma Studioes, never ones to let fake blood sit on the shelf too long, gathered together every scream queen, zombie-guy and satan-worshipping horndog in the business to make ... the biggest, dumbest mish-mash of kung-fu, boobs, tigers and has-been undead actors ever witnessed! With Brinke Stevens, Tom Savini (as Jesus Christ!), Joe Estevez, Conrad Brooks, porn-geezer Ron Jeremy, lovely Linnea Quigley, giant sex-goddess Julie Strain and oodles of others! Not to be missed.
OTHER DVDS OF INTEREST
30 DAYS: SEASON 1
2005; DVD $26.95, UR
ER: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON
1994; DVD $49.95, UR
JOHNNY CASH — MAN IN BLACK: LIVE IN DENMARK 1971
1971; DVD $14.95, UR
PINK FLOYD: PULSE
1995; DVD $24.95, UR
WEEDS: SEASON 1
2005; DVD $39.95, UR
A more complete listing and free vids at www.videotapeworm.com!
